


The Descent of Their Last End

by Mithen



Series: Corner of 6th & How to Forget [1]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Betrayal, Friendship, Gen, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3603693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctors told Dean Ambrose blah blah concussion yadda yadda memory loss, but he's not going to let that keep him from watching Friday Night Smackdown with his Shield partner Seth Rollins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Descent of Their Last End

**Author's Note:**

> Written thanks to the enabling of APGeeksout!

_“He heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” --James Joyce, “The Dead”_

The hotel door swung open abruptly at his knock. Without looking up from his phone, Seth Rollins snapped: “Jamie, I told you that--”

 _”Surprise!”_ bellowed Dean Ambrose, throwing his arms out wide. If he had been paying attention, he would have seen Seth recoil from him. But he was busy dropping the six-pack on the floor and pulling off his wet coat and muddy boots. “Betcha didn’t think I’d make it, huh?”

“You’re...supposed to be in the hospital,” said Seth blankly. He had backed away from Dean into the middle of his hotel room and was staring at him.

“Yep,” agreed Dean. He lifted his wrist and squinted at the plastic bracelet. “St. Mary’s, looks like. They said I needed to stay for observation, yadda yadda concussion, blah blah memory loss. But!” he said, reaching down to grab the six-pack and deposit it in Seth’s arms. “If I got memory loss, how’d I remember what night of the week it was, huh?” He tapped his temple. “Smart-ass doctors couldn’t explain that. So I just, you know, let myself out and walked here.”

He ran his fingers through his rain-wet hair, then shook his head like a dog, sending droplets spraying everywhere. Seth flinched as if Dean had struck him.

Dean looked around. “So where’s Roman?”

This time the flinch was just around Seth’s eyes. “He’s…”

“Oh shit, is he hurt too? Was he in the same hospital as me and I walked out on him? Shit.” Dean dropped onto the couch and grabbed the remote. “That big galoot’s no good on his own, man. We gotta take better care of him.”

“He’s not hurt,” said Seth. He opened his mouth, closed it again. “He...just can’t be here tonight.”

“Well, more beer for you and me, then.” He hit the remote, then frowned at the television. “What the hell?” He felt a sudden woozy feeling of panic and struggled not to show it. He didn’t want to admit it to Seth, but he’d been feeling pretty fuzzy since waking up in the hospital. Like he’d forgotten something important and he didn’t know what it was. “It’s Friday night, yeah?” He knew his voice sounded angry, but that was better than worried. “I know it’s Friday night! So where’s the fucking show, huh?”

“Oh,” said Seth. “Smackdown was...on Thursday night this week.” He sounded almost relieved that they couldn’t watch wrestling, which was weird--usually he was the one who insisted on these “scouting sessions” where they analyzed every freaking move by the other wrestlers.

“Thursday? Weird. But good, I guess. They oughta move it there permanently. Gimme one of those beers.”

Still standing in the middle of the room, Seth extricated one of the cans of beer and looked at it for a moment. He looked at Dean, sprawled out on the couch on the other side of the room. Then his lips thinned like he was bracing himself, and he stepped over and handed Dean the beer. He watched as Dean popped it open and took a long sip. 

“So,” Seth said after a moment. “What are your thoughts on...the match we’ve got coming up?”

Dean couldn’t help a bark of laughter. “Wow, that’s a generic-ass way to talk about freaking _Wrestlemania,_ ” he said. “I tell you man, you need to stop obsessing over it and all your contingency plans. We’re fighting the goddamn Old Age Outlaws, the only strategy we need is to kick their wrinkled asses.”

“2014,” Seth said in a low voice, almost to himself.

Dean hoisted his beer in a salute. “2014, brother. Gonna be the Year of the Shield,” he said, and drank again. 

Seth was looking at him, and it made Dean feel uneasy somehow. There was something wrong with his hair, something _off_ about the whole way he held himself--but whenever Dean tried to focus on it his head hurt. He pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing.

“The New Age Outlaws,” said Seth. “I bet we beat them in no time flat.” The words were hopeful, but his voice didn’t sound hopeful at all, somehow.

“That’s the spirit,” said Dean, warming to the topic. “Bunch of weak-ass toadies, kissing Triple H’s behind to get five more minutes of fame. Like that Batista has-been. Thinks he can hitch his wagon to the Authority’s star like a good little yes-man.” He grinned at Seth, who didn’t smile back. “We’re coming for them next, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” said Seth. He sat down on the other side of the couch. “We’ll show them.” He had a can of beer in his hand, but he didn’t open it. He was just looking at Dean. It was kind of like he was worried about him, and kind of...not.

Dean finished his beer and considered opening another, but one seemed to be enough for now. “You always got a contingency plan,” he said a bit muzzily. “You know, we give you a lot of crap, but Roman and I always know we can count on you to come up with the winning strategy.”

There was something definitely off with the way Seth was looking at him, it was really weird. 

“You haven’t said shit about Crossfit since I got here,” said Dean to cover up that he was feeling kind of freaked out. “Are you Seth’s evil twin or something? What’s wrong with you?”

Seth laughed, just a little, and his shoulders relaxed as if he was forcing himself to stop being tense about something. “Nothing,” he said after a moment. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

After that they just shot the shit for a while, talking about all the usual stuff--Crossfit, sure, there was no shutting Seth up about that for long, but also all the other boring little things that they always talked about when they hung out together. Dean made stupid jokes, Seth rolled his eyes, they both talked shit about Roman--it was the same as always, really. Just a normal Friday night. Dean’s head still kind of hurt, and there was a ringing in his ears now and then, but other than that he felt really good. He felt tired, and kind of… kind of…

He realized abruptly that his head was on Seth’s shoulder, that he’d dozed off at some point and slumped over. “Sorry,” he mumbled, straightening up again and making sure he hadn’t drooled on Seth. “Haven’t been sleeping very well lately, I guess.”

“Me either,” said Seth. “It’s okay.” He seemed to be looking at something on the far wall, his head turned away from Dean. “It’s okay.”

“I guess I better get back to the hospital before they send the police after me.” Dean stood up, stretching. “Thanks for letting me crash here for a while.” He ambled over to the door, pulled on his coat. “You can keep the rest of the beer,” he said, bending over to lace up his boots. “Doubt they’ll let me have it in the hospital.”

He straightened up and stuck out his fist to bump against Seth’s, ready to make some parting quip--but the easy words died on his lips when he saw Seth’s face. “Hey,” he said, but didn’t have time to say anything else before Seth grabbed him and dragged him into a crushing hug.

“Hey,” Dean said again, helplessly, as Seth buried his face in his shoulder. “You gotta chill, you’re freaking me out.” He could feel Seth shaking against him. “You worried about Wrestlemania? I told you to relax about that. We’ll do great, we always do great, Roman and me, we got your back. We always will. I mean, we’re your _brothers.”_

“Oh God,” said Seth into his shoulder, his voice a shattered mess.

Dean patted Seth’s back, awkwardly, trying to figure out what was going on. Oh! Right. He cleared his throat and went on.

“Look, I know what’s wrong.” Seth started to shake his head and Dean repeated more forcefully, “No, I do! I know me and Roman, we’ve been kind of at each other’s throats lately, right? Right? And you’ve had to work really hard keeping us together. But _you’re_ what keeps us together. Get it? You’re the center, you’re the glue. You don’t have to do all that work. We’ll try to do better. I mean, _I’ll_ try to do better, I don’t know about Roman, he’s kind of an asshole. But I guess I am too. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” 

Seth’s body jerked like Dean had clubbed him with something, and his hands fisted into Dean’s coat, and it was all wrong, _Dean_ was supposed to be the high-strung one, the unstable one, the one who did weird crazy shit. He didn’t know what to do with a Seth that looked wrung-out and wretched, and who was hanging on to him like a drowning man. So he just kept talking, he just stroked Seth’s stupid hair and said whatever came into his head, that everything was going to be okay, that nothing could stop them, because they were brothers and they believed in each other, and Dean believed in Seth, and he knew Roman did too, and their Architect was never gonna let them down, and Seth needed to stop worrying so much, okay?

Seth leaned against him and listened, and listened, and he stopped shaking, but when he finally stepped back he didn’t look reassured at all. He looked like his soul was in bloody tatters, like Dean’s words had flayed his spirit raw. “You should go,” he said.

“Okay, man,” said Dean, hunching his shoulders up in his coat, feeling confused and helpless and angry. “But don’t do anything stupid.”

Seth laughed, a sharp dry bark. “Good advice,” he said. “Thanks.”

* * *

Dean glared up at the sky and turned up his collar. Of course the rain had turned into snow, great big flakes of it, spiraling slowly downward. “Damn it,” he muttered, and started to slosh down the sidewalk.

At the corner, he looked back. Seth was standing in the window, looking down at him through the falling snow. Like something from that fucking pointless story he had to read in high school, the one by that Irish guy, Dean thought. Where the boy comes to say goodbye to the girl in the rain and then he dies and she mopes and watches the snow fall and never loves again. Morbid shit.

He raised his hand to wave goodbye, but Seth didn’t wave back. He just watched Dean fade away through the snow like he was watching a ghost, or a memory. Something gone past all recall.


End file.
